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During the high school years, keeping good records of schoolwork is especially important for most homeschool families. Students who are going on to college or trade school will very likely need a transcript; and the quality and acceptability of the transcript will depend to a great extent on the quality of the records of coursework and grades. Some homeschoolers have the advantage of belonging to an umbrella or oversight group that provides the transcripts and records, but even so, the information for those must be provided by the homeschool family. Since I've just submitted our midterm grades to our group, I thought this would be a good week to share some of the record-keeping resources I'm familiar with.
My record-keeping program of choice for most of our homeschool journey has been Homeschool Tracker. This year I started using Homeschool Tracker Online and it continues to be my go-to for tracking lesson plans, assignments, due dates, grades, time spent, resource lists, and more. It can also be used to produce report cards and transcripts. Since my group produces the transcripts we need, all I have to do is submit semester grades, and I do that with the help of this program. I've got lesson plans in the Tracker, from which I produce the assignments for each student, and then record the grades earned and time spent on each assignment. At report card time, I print out the Homeschool Tracker Online report card, and then simply transfer the numbers and course titles to the form I submit to my group. Couldn't be easier.
Today's Homeschool Tracker Online offers powerful and flexible planning tools and features with cloud access. Scheduling, record keeping, lesson planning, grading, and reporting can all be done from anywhere you have internet access.
Read my full review of Homeschool Tracker Online here: Homeschool Tracker Online: A Homeschool Coffee Break Review
SchoolhouseTeachers.com offers a huge library of curriculum resources, and the Resources for Members section includes the Applecore record-keeping system and many other planning tools. Definitely worth checking out, especially since the membership price is such a deal!
For those that prefer a paper planner, I highly recommend The Ultimate Homeschool Planner from Apologia. It's a 52-week homeschool planner designed by best-selling homeschool author Debra Bell, with calendars, planning and record-keeping pages, and guidance on how to plan and pray and use the planner. This is what I use for the on-paper portions of my planning and record-keeping. It is organized with pages to help you plan and record things like:
- academic and character goals for your children
- family priorities
- homeschool resources
- grades, reading lists, and field trips
- high school courses of study
- monthly and weekly activities and family calendars
- prayers and answers to prayer
- Memorable Moments in your life and homeschool
- year-end reflections and goals
Read my full review of The Ultimate Homeschool Planner here: The Ultimate Homeschool Planner - A Schoolhouse Crew Review
Back to online planning and record-keeping tools, another powerful online planner is offered through Homeschool Buyers Co-op. One of the benefits of membership with the co-op is the option to subscribe to their powerful, full-featured online planner, Homeschool Planet.
Homeschool Planet is a complete online planner system, not just for your homeschool, but for your home as well. It is designed to be easy (and quick!) to learn, and has so many features that it can be a sort of control panel for your home and homeschool - all in one. It is capable of syncing your family's calendars so everyone's errands, appointments, and schoolwork can be seen in one place. It can keep track of all your homeschool's lesson plans and resources, and help you produce records and transcripts. It can send text or email reminders to family members and calendar items, and it's even possible to set it up so each student can log in and see their own assignments and check them off when completed. Optional widgets can do things like hold shopping lists, to-do lists, or keep you apprised of the weather forecast for the day. This program is capable of all kinds of record-keeping, lesson planning, and all sorts of related (and unrelated) planning information.
Read my full review of Homeschool Planet here: Homeschool Planet - A Schoolhouse Crew Review
And finally, for those who want or need to produce their own transcript, Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) has an easy and affordable solution. Fast Transcripts makes it possible for homeschool parents to create professional high school transcripts and takes the guesswork out of the GPA calculation.
Which of these resources do you use? Or have you got another favorite? Leave a comment and let me know, and link up your posts about homeschooling high school here. Visit your neighbors and leave some encouraging comments!
If you're homeschooling through high school and have not yet joined the Blog Roll, please take a moment to do that as well.
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2 comments:
What a great list! Some new ones on there for me, as well.
These are some great resources!! Thanks for posting!
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